A Quote by Peter O'Toole

Actors have given up their clout. Now decision making is in the hands of lighting men, designers, bankers, special-effects people. We need to cut that out and just go with the most able trained actors in the business.
With a book I am the writer and I am also the director and I'm all of the actors and I'm the special effects guy and the lighting technician: I'm all of that. So if it's good or bad, it's all up to me.
Even on my films, I always collaborate with the actors. That's a given. I think you need that. You need the actors to feel as much ownership of the performance and the direction of the story as you do, to get the most out of everyone's potential.
There are so many brilliant, trained actors of color in America. If you just think about it, every year in the spring Julliard and NYU and Yale and hundreds of schools across the country graduate classes of trained actors, and in those classes are actors of color. So to say that there aren't enough actors of color is factually inaccurate.
I love actors, both my parents were actors, and the work with actors is the most enjoyable part of making a film. It's important that they feel protected and are confident they won't be betrayed. When you create that atmosphere of trust, it's in the bag - the actors will do everything to satisfy you.
When I got into the movie business, working with actors was the one thing I was really weak at. I didn't know what to say to actors. They scared me and intimidated me. The actors that I've worked with who have had a lot of experience, or who I've even grown up watching as a kid, were really scary. I was like, "What am I going to say to this person?" But, I've matured. It's fun. I understand what actors do now.
I find it rather tedious working with some actors who have to go into a corner and bounce up and down, shake their hands and arms, saying to the director, "Just a second - I'll be ready in a few minutes, " while all the other actors are waiting around to get in. Then they say, "OK! I'm ready now." And then they come on and do it exactly the same way they've done it in rehearsal.
I feel so sorry for younger actors who aren't able to have the opportunities that I had, starting out in repertory theatre. It's really tough on young actors now.
Most actors and actresses are performative as people. It goes part and parcel with the profession and New York actors who are out of work, or actors anywhere out of work, are manic because you never know when the next job is going to come.
Indian actors, because of the format of our stories, need to be good actors, and be able to perform emotional sequences, do a bit of comedy, dance and singing, action, because all of this forms just one film. In many ways I'd say there are greater demands on Indian actors than there are on Hollywood.
You work with every actor differently. It's like if you're a mother, if you have children, some children need more discipline. Other children you back off of a little bit and let them be. It's the same way with actors. Some actors need a lot of hand holding. Other actors like to be let be and you let them go. Some actors like to be nudged just a little bit. Some actors don't mind line readings.
I think, in general, straight actors should be able to play queer roles just as much as queer actors should be able to play straight roles. I think the reason why the debate is there is because we haven't had enough queer actors being cast in anything. People are in need of that representation in general.
Just as theater has to be where people live, actors have to go out in the marketplace - not be cut off by a lens. Either an artist grows or he stagnates.
The best actors instinctively feel out what the other actors need, and they just accommodate it.
Actors are given songs that suit their voice and skill. At the same time, those songs which have a complicated tune and need expertise to perform should be given to trained singers.
What I learned about acting, from my experiences directing, is why so many producers and directors don't like actors. You go through all of this work securing a location, figuring out how to get electricity there, how to get trucks parked where they need to be, and where catering is going to come from. And if the actors don't come up with some magic, it actually didn't matter. That creates a lot of animosity towards the actors.
Most actors nowadays are models turned actors. That's why a lot of young actors are terrible. You have to learn how to act. It is not something that you can just do.
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